The man told a neighbour, who advised him to throw a live coal at the vision's face the next time. He did so the next night and all the family saw the action. The following day the same spirit appeared to him in the fields and beat him severely, so that he had to keep to his bed for fourteen days. The minister Mr Morison and several friends came and prayed with him that he might be freed, but Martin says he was still haunted a year after he left Lewis.
The account is second-hand but names the local minister, and it records the unusual detail that the double was physically violent. It was not a harmless omen like most of Martin's cases.
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